Starting from third on the grid, Verstappen made the most of the slipstream effect to get alongside Merced🌞es pair Valtteri Bottas and Lewis꧒ Hamilton.

On the racing line, Verstappen braked in🙈credibly late to sw🅷oop around the outside of his two rivals to take the lead of the race.

The Dutchman controlled the pace from then on to ultimately take a comfortable victory in Mexico, over 16 secoꦗnds clear of F1 title rival Hamilton.

Reflecting on his ‘crucial’ start, Verstappen said: “What stood out was clearly th🌳e start, three wide going into Turn 1, it’s quite typical of this track but exciting.

“You have to bꦫe precise, because speeds are high, braking into Turn 1 afte🍬r the start, tyres are cold, brakes are cold going into that corner.

“But it w🧸as crucial for me to get ahead there and I could do my own pace from there onwards.”

Explaining the opening lap further, Verstappen was conf♍ident of where he was going to brake into Turn 1 once he was on the racing line going into the opening sequence of corners.

“I mean of course you can’t really practice how a star♐t is going to go, right, as you end up left, middle, rig෴ht, depends what happens,” Verstappen added.

“But once I w🌊as on the outside and on the🎶 racing line I knew exactly where I was going to brake.

“It’s alwayꦰs a tricky one, especially as the car on the inside is fully onto the dirt as nobody is really driving there so they can never brake as muc🅠h as the car on the outside.

“Also because of the angle going into the corner, and I knew where I was braking was on the edge as I was getting quite close to the white line on the exit.💛 I knew if somebody would brake later on the inside he would have definitely gone off the track so I went for it and it worked.”